Note 23 — 1774, 1780–81.

Lord North's Administration, which had the onus of conducting the American War, was daily growing weaker and losing popularity; it resigned in March of the year following, and the Rockingham Ministry came into office. The first condition of this more liberal Administration had obtained, through the negotiations of Lord Shelburne, the consent of the King to 'peace with the Americans, and the acknowledgment of their independence.' In a later caricature by Gillray, which appeared on the resignation of Lord North—Banco to the Knave, April 12, 1782—the figure of Sir Grey Cooper, one of the Treasury Secretaries, is introduced, exclaiming, 'I want a new master.' On this gentleman's chair is the name 'Sir Grey Parole,' because, it is understood, he usually sat on the left of Lord North on the Treasury Bench; and when that statesman, who trusted to his memory for the principal points elicited in the debates, had been overcome by the constitutional somnolency which was a favourite subject of ridicule with the satirists, the Secretary aroused his chief, and supplied the deficiency of notes by suggesting the thread of argument, or parole, as required.